


The ways of Elves and other Strangers

by Enide_Dear



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Aragorn just can't with these dorks, M/M, The elf is acting weird, if only Gimli could still his beating heart he might be able to figure it out, well more weird than usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27402154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enide_Dear/pseuds/Enide_Dear
Summary: Something is up with Legolas; he is acting weirder for every step the Fellowship takes on their journey. Gimli probably could figure out what he was up to if he could still his beating heart for a little.
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 22
Kudos: 256
Collections: The Two Thousand Fics on AO3 Gigolas Challenge





	The ways of Elves and other Strangers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roselightfairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/gifts).



> For Roselightfairy to hopefully distract her a little in these troubling times.

"So, Gimli, what do you think about this one?"

Gimli sighed in quiet exasperation as once again a stone was tossed to him - not cruelly tossed but easy to catch. Say what you want about the daft elf but he did have excellent aim. Gimli easily caught the stone and turned it over in his hand. It was a rather unremarkable piece of gneiss, most likely with magmatic origin. It had a rather fetching pattern of mica and feldspar and it had been worn smooth by the river but apart from that it was nothing special.

Except that it was the third one he'd received in as many days. All of them smooth and pretty but useless from a mineral perspective. He had no idea what it was all about. 

"It's nice," he said, searching for polite words. "I like the vein of quartz." It glittered in the sunlight as he held it up and he hefted it in his hand. It really had a pleasing shape; it felt good in his hand. "And the shape."

It was nicer than the other ones; one small piece of flint with sharp edges and a large sandstone with an imprint of a fossil. He'd said something polite about those two, before carefully setting them down on the path - he had enough to carry on this quest without dragging around an elf's weird stone collection. And both times the look on Legolas face had given him a bad conscience for hours after. 

He looked up from his stone to see Legolas smiling anxiously at him until Gimli, at a complete loss of what to say or do, put the stone in his pocket. A small gasp lit the elf's face and he suddenly beamed as if Gimli had given him a small kingdom. With a new spring in his step he strutted down the path after the rest of the Fellowship, pride and happiness all but radiating from him. Gimli felt a stab of something warm and impossible in his heart at the sight and quickly buried it. Let it be enough that he had made his unlikely crush happy. No need to involve any other feelings. 

The stone in his pocket was warm from all the touching and he kept fingering it, still confused about what it was about. At first he'd thought Legolas was mocking him, giving rocks to a dwarf. But that seemed very unlike the elf's behavior; he could be teasing and annoying yes, but never cruel or bullying. It was a sad fact that over the course of their wanderings he'd grown more and more fond of Legolas, to the point where he didn't quite dare investigate his own feelings to closely. He closed his hand around the stone in his pocket. Whatever this was about it had made Legolas happy, and that would have to be enough. 

They walked the whole next day without any new rocks gifted although it was obvious that Legolas kept his eye out for something. At random times he kept disappearing into the open plain area of Hollin and returning with large sticks, almost poles. Well, that made sense. This was an area were wood was scarce and they all kept an eye out for firewood for a hot meal tonight. But the stakes Legolas found were tall enough that he had to carry them over his shoulder and when they decided to stop for the night and Boromir reached for the wood to start a fire, Legolas all but hissed at him. Instead he got to work building...something. Gimli had no idea what, as Legolas had insisted on them stopping at the ruins of an old building and whatever it was he was doing, he was doing it....at the top of the building. 

Hobbits and dwarf all stared at the crazy elf and his poles three meters up in the air, while Boromir swore over his lack of firewood and Aragorn and Gandalf exchanged meaningful looks. Legolas ignored them all, working diligently for hours as dusk turned into night. The others lost interest after a while and started to set up camp, putting the tents up and cooking dinner. Gimli kept hovering underneath the ruins, partly out of deep curiosity and partly because he was scared sensles that the elf would take one misstep and plummet to his death. 

But of course the elf didn't fall. He climbed up and down the ruins like a spider with his arms full of increasingly strange objects; leafed branches, vines, several armfuls of dep green moss. He didn't come down until Sam shouted that dinner was ready and even then he was all but jumping from foot to foot in eagerness to get back while quickly eating his food. He then waited impatiently until Gimli had finished his own soup before strangely bashful, asking Gimli if he wanted to see what he'd built. 

"Of course." Gimli got up and put away his pipe. His curiosity was greater than his need for a smoke. "I have to see what's kept you so busy all evening, when anyone sensible would take the chance for rest."

"Can we come to?" Pippin started but Aragorn quickly grabbed his arm and shook his head vehemently. Gimli turned around in time to see Gandalf's eyes burning with a strangely please glance as the dwarf followed the elf into the night. 

It should be frightening, not to say potentially lethal, to climb an old ruin at night but the ruins were made of stone and Gimli knew stones. These might be old and weatherworn but they were superbly formed and would not fall down by themselves for centuries, if left alone. He felt no fear as Legolas led him up an old stair but what met him on the top made him almost drop his jaw. 

It was a crow's nest, if a crow had the skill to braid branches and shape poles. The hut, almost cabin, was built completely out of branches and sticks and vines, but it looked extremely sturdy for al that and its floor was covered with soft moss. It had a door and a glassless window that could be opened to observe the stars or closed to keep out wind. It looked very, very cozy for all that it was perched on top of a stonewall. 

"That is a mighty fine work," he said impressed against his will but still trying to figure out what this was about. Legolas had slept in a tent like the rest of them for weeks already and hadn't seem to need a cabin of his own before. "Will you be sleeping here tonight?"

"Actually," it was too dark to see Legolas face but his voice was trembling with some kind of emotion. "I was hoping you would like to sleep there."

Gimli swallowed several of the first words that came into mind; they were all along the track of 'but what if I fall down!' or 'the tents are good enough for me'. Legolas had worked very hard on this, very obviously pouring his heart and soul into its construction, strange as the whole situation was. And he'd done it for Gimli. That brought a new, even stronger stab to his heart, one that was even more difficult to ignore. He concentrated on the situation in front of him. Legolas had done this for him. If he said no, he might be devastated. Much as he didn't understand, he just couldn't say no to such a gift. 

"I would be honored." He croaked, hoping desperately that it wouldn't rain that night or that he'd fall to his death for his ridiculous, impossible heart's sake. 

He crawled into the hut which smelled of leaves and elf and opened the window to the stars. The door was shut gently behind him as he sank down into the surprisingly warm and comfortable nest of moss and swept the cloak around himself. Clutching the stone in his hand he fell into the most comfortable sleep he'd had in years. 

It did rain that night. Not a single drop made it through the tightly-woven roof. 

Legolas was whiskered away by his kin almost as soon as they entered Lothlorien and had met with the Lord and Lady and Gimli's heart almost broke to see him leave. They were all devastated by the loss of Gandalf and to lose Legolas as well so quickly after sent Gimli spiraling into questioning everything he'd thought he'd knew. Of course he recognized the elf's need to be comforted by his own people, but he still remembered his arms around him as he dragged him out of the Chamber of Mazarbul when grief had made him despair. He desperately wanted to feel that comfort again and perhaps to return it. the thought of Legolas crying on some other elf's shoulder, be them kin or not, made him feel small and useless. He'd thought they had grown tight under these weeks of privation and shared adventures. For his part, perhaps even more than friendship burned in his heart. But now....

He looked up from his dark thoughts as he heard someone approaching. Normally you didn't hear elves approaching especially not a wood elf, but this time there was an unmistakable sound of fine golden chains and jewels like bells in the wind. he thought it must be the Lady and made an effort to get himself together but when he looked up he saw nothing less than an elven prince. 

Of course, he'd always known Legolas was a prince. It was hard to forget who his father was after what he'd done to Gimli's father after all. But weeks of hardship had not really brought out that side of the elf. 

Lothlorien had.

Gimli had heard Gloin tell of Thranduil's riches; his gold-and-silver cloth, his jewels and his slightly out of character crown. Thranduil, for all that he was bastard, was undoubtly magnificent or so Glóin had grudgingly admitted in his cups. 

But Gimli now knew he was nothing compared to his son.

Legolas was dressed in silver robes; there was a crown of mythril on his head and diamonds woven into his hair. He shone with a light that was wholly unlike the Lady's; a warmer light, like a fire after a long days trekk in the snow or a candle burning defiantly in the dark. It completely took Gimli's breath away. 

Legolas reached down a hand. 

"Come. Let us share our grief while walking these lands. 

Gimli took it. 

He returned, hours later, to the Fellowship with a look as if someone had smacked him between the eyes with a pole axe. 

"Are you alright?" Merry asked. "You look...stunned."

"He danced." Gimli managed before crawling into his bedrolls.

"He what?" Pippin asked confused. 

There were no words Gimli knew in any of the languages he spoke to describe the beauty and sorrow of an elven prince dancing his lament under the twilight of Lothlorien. He shook his head, touched ot the core by the extremely private display of sorrow he'd been privileged to witness, but no words came. 

"He danced." He repeated and the sorrow in his chest from Gandalf's death seemed a more tangible thing, as if despair had lifted. 

Despite it all, despite the closeness the felt almost like a bond between them, Gimli still felt like there was something he was missing, something huge that the elf was trying to tell him but which he told in such a way as to make no sense to Gimli. They were still in Lothlorien when Aragorn came to sit by his side, the Man obviously having something on his mind. 

"Did you know," he said after lighting his pipe, "there are those who say Men remind them much of the apes of the South? So much indeed that our behaviors are similar to those."

"Aye, I have heard such nonsense," Gimli retorted, wondering why on earth the Man chose to bring up obscure slights to Men at this moment. Surely he'd never hear such from the elves here?

"And I have heard that hobbits are very similar to rabbits, with their burrows and their large families."

"And dwarves are sometimes compared to dragons. Aye, what of it?" Gimli frowned but Aragorn made a gesture of conciliation. 

"I meant no harm. I mean only that different animals and indeed different people have different ways and if you want to understand elves you should look to the sky. To the birds." He clasped Gimli's shoulder and made to leave, leaving Gimli more confused than ever. Birds? What of birds? From the trees around them came birdsong even though it was autumn and when Gimli looked up he saw a nest, perched high in the trees above him. 

From somewhere in the woods around him came another sound, the sound of singing. The sound of Legolas singing. 

And suddenly all the pieces fell into place in Gimli's brain. The pretty rocks, building him a nest, displaying colours and dancing.....and now singing. 

"Is he...has he been wooing me this whole time?!" He realized he was on his feet with no idea how he got there. Aragorn just nodded and smiled and gave him a little puff on the shoulder in the direction of the singing. 

Gimli walked into the bower - there was no other word for it. It was decorated to, with many of the decorative pieces being blue, for no reason Gimli could see. It was beautiful though, although not as beautiful as the nervous elf standing in the middle of it. 

"So," Gimli cleared his throat, "this is what it was all about?"

"Yes." Legolas smiled. "I hope you liked it. i have never done it before, and well, it wasn't easy while we were on the road."

"You could have just told me you know." Gimli took the few steps up to him and took hold of his hand. "It would have made things a little easier."

"Maybe," Legolas smiled mischievous,"but not half as fun."

**Author's Note:**

> Elven courtship is much like birds; you cannot change my mind.


End file.
